Floor Statements

Mr. Speaker, our Constitution states that Members of Congress must be chosen by the people of the United States and Congress must represent the people of the United States. That means that we, as Members of Congress, need to listen and act when the people speak.

Well, the American people have spoken. The latest Gallup poll released last week indicates that the American people are ready for our military forces in Iraq to begin coming home.

Nearly 60 percent of Americans believe that the United States should bring home some or all of our troops from Iraq. Just as revealing, the Gallup poll showed that only 36 percent of Americans support maintaining our current troop levels in Iraq. This is the lowest level of support for the war since it began in March 2003.

The American people have stated loud and clear where they stand, and their numbers are increasing. They know that the only way to keep our sons and daughters from being killed in Iraq and the only way to end the death and destruction that occur there every single day is to start the process of bringing our troops home. Clearly, the American people are way ahead of Congress on this issue.

Unfortunately, the President of the United States is way behind on the issue of Iraq. We have asked the President to come up with a plan for ending the war. He has not; so we will.

Our efforts to come up with a plan began in January when I introduced legislation calling for the President to begin bringing our troops home. Thirty-five Members of Congress support this legislation.

We continued our effort on May 25 when I introduced an amendment to the defense authorization bill calling for the President to create a plan for Iraq; 128 Members of Congress, including five Republicans and one Independent, voted in favor of this sensible amendment.

It is clear that the United States must develop a smarter agenda, an agenda for Iraq, an agenda that will go beyond when we bring our troops home from Iraq.

It is more important that we have a plan for the future than a continued military occupation, because this 2-year war has left us disturbingly weakened, weakened against the true security threats we face here at home. Let us not forget that Osama bin Laden is still at large, and al Qaeda continues to recruit new members in Iraq and elsewhere.

Once we have a plan in place to end the war in Iraq, we can start the long process of securing the United States and Iraq for the future. We can accomplish this through SMART Security.

SMART Security, which has the support of 50 Members of Congress, is a Sensible Multilateral American Response to Terrorism for the 21st Century, and it will help us address the threats we face as a Nation.

SMART Security will prevent acts of terrorism in countries like Iraq by addressing the root conditions which give rise to terrorism in the first place: poverty, despair, resource scarcity, and lack of educational opportunities.

SMART Security encourages the United States to work with other nations to address the most pressing global issues. SMART addresses global emergencies diplomatically, instead of by resorting to armed conflict.

Instead of maintaining a long-term military occupation of Iraq, our future efforts to help the Iraqi people must follow the SMART approach: humanitarian assistance, coordinated with our international allies to rebuild Iraq's war-torn physical and economic infrastructure.

That is what I mean when I talk about SMART Security. We can defend America by relying on the very best of American values, our commitment to peace and freedom, our compassion for the people of the world, and our capacity for multilateral leadership.

Mr. Speaker, we must follow a smarter approach, and we must do this as we work to help the Iraqi people. That means implementing a plan to end the war in Iraq. I invite the President, all Americans, and all Members of Congress to join me in this effort.

Mr. Speaker, I thank the gentlewoman from California for starting tonight's dialogue.

It is true. I have been on the House floor, I think, 79 times, maybe 80 in the last year for 5 minutes after the end of our workday, of our congressional day. And my message has been we need to figure out how to bring our troops home. Never in that message have I said it is the troops' fault that we are there and that they are to be criticized. We are not going to pick on the warriors. We are not going to blame them

because their leadership, their administration, sent them there to do a job that was not necessary.

The death of over 1,700 of our troops does not say to me that to honor those deaths we need to send more troops, we need to have more death.

I do not think that honors those who have died. I think that, in fact, it is a shame that we would even think of sending another young person, male, female, another older person, our National Guard, our Reservists, into an area that we did not need to be in in the first place. There is no excuse for the United States to have started a war in Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, our Constitution states that Members of Congress must be chosen by the people of the United States and that Congress must represent the people of the United States. That means that we as Members, Members of Congress, need to act and listen to the people when they speak. Well, I have been speaking for 80 days, every time we are in session, for 5 minutes, but now the American people are speaking. They have spoken.

The latest Gallup poll released last week indicates that the American people are ready for our military in Iraq to start coming home. They are saying, bring our troops home. They say this, and some actually supported the war at the beginning, but now, like the three of us up here, they want to honor our troops, they want to honor the families of our troops, they want to bring them home safe and whole.

When I say whole, I know what I am talking about. Two years ago, I had major, major back surgery at the Bethesda Naval Hospital. And when I was able to walk, I walked the halls and visited the troops that had come home then. It was August 2 years ago, so they were just beginning to come home from Iraq. I want to tell my colleagues, we are not talking about people that are hardly wounded at all, we are talking about young people who have virtually been destroyed physically. Their minds are there, though. They know what happened. But we are doing such a disservice to them if we send more young people, more troops in an area where they too are going to get injured or killed.

Nearly 60 percent of Americans believe that the United States should bring home some or all of our troops from Iraq, and the Gallup poll tells us that only 36 percent of Americans support maintaining our current troop level in Iraq. Only 36 percent. This is the lowest level of support for the war since it began in March 2003, and nobody is saying we do not support our troops. They know these statistics are all about bringing them home because we do support them, and we know that when they come home they will be safe. It is absolute in these numbers that Americans are not criticizing the troops, the warriors; they are criticizing the war, how we got into it, how badly it has been managed, and why there is absolutely no plan on how to bring our troops home.

The American people have stated loud and clear, and their numbers are increasing also; the more they see what is happening to their neighbor, a friend of their son or their daughter, they are realizing that, oh, my, it can happen to any single one of these young people that we send overseas for a war that was not necessary in the first place. The only way to end this death and destruction that occurs every single day is to start the process of bringing our troops home. Clearly, the American people are way ahead of Congress on this issue.

Unfortunately, the President of the United States is way behind on the issue of Iraq. We have asked the President to come up with a plan for ending the war. He has not. He has no plan for victory, except to leave our troops in harm's way as targets for a furious insurgency who look at our sons and daughters as occupiers. What, then, should Members of Congress do?

Well, I have been working hard on this, as the gentlewoman from California told us. For one thing, I came up with a plan in January when I introduced legislation that is H. Con. Res. 35, calling for the President to begin bringing our troops home. Thirty-five Members of Congress support this legislation. And then we continued this effort on May 25 by introducing an amendment to the defense authorization bill calling on the President to do this simple thing: Create a plan for Iraq and bring his plan to the appropriate House committee. Mr. Speaker, 128 Members of Congress, including five Republicans and one Independent, voted in favor of this sensible amendment.

It is clear that the United States must develop a plan to bring our troops home. That is the only fair thing to do for the people of this country but, most importantly, for the troops. They deserve to know when they get to come home, and their families deserve it equally.

I have loved being up here with my colleagues. I am proud to be a member of the Out of Iraq Task Force in the House of Representatives. It is not that we want to run away from anything; we certainly believe that when the United States pulls our troops home, that we do have a responsibility and we must be working with the Iraqis to help them with their failing economic and physical infrastructure. We know that we can help them with that, but we know we cannot do it while we are in the midst of destroying their cities at the same time we are trying to put them back together. First, we bring our troops home, then we work with the Iraqi government and we help them put their country back together.

We are also proud of the Iraqi citizens who went to the polls and voted, but we are also very clear that what they were voting for was the fact that they wanted their country back in control by the Iraqis, not by the United States military. As soon as we do this, we can start working with them, and we can work with the international world, get them all involved, so we can be doing the right thing for Iraq and the Iraqi people who are also being destroyed by this war.

So I thank the gentlewoman for letting me be a part of this. My colleagues will hear more from us. We have a lot of ideas, but our major idea is two words, ``troops home,'' in honor of those young men and young women and the Reservists and the National Guard who are doing something that they were told they must do; and they are serving their country the best that they can, but they are getting very poor guidance from the leaders of this country.

Well, I do not want to be a cynic but is not Donald Rumsfeld the same individual who was stamping his names on letters to families when he was sending his condolences to them when their family member had died in Iraq? He needs a lot of training on how to be compassionate.

I think it is a very good idea that we send that letter, but I do not think we should be surprised that that is the reaction that Cindy Sheehan has gotten from Condoleeza Rice and from Donald Rumsfeld.

There seems to be something missing in the picture, and that is compassion and really understanding what this means to those who are fighting the war and the families of those who have lost their loved ones and who are getting loved ones back who are totally, totally wounded, both physically and mentally. So yes, we should do that.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the requisite number of words.

Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Spratt amendment to the defense appropriations bill.

This amendment, as he told us, will take $84 million from the missile defense program, the single largest defense program in our Nation's history, and add it to an area that we have neglected for far too long: nonproliferation.

The missile defense program has never been proven successful, but the nonproliferation programs have proven extremely successful.

In particular, we need to ramp up funds for the Cooperative Threat Reduction program, CTR. This successful nonproliferation program has succeeded at reducing the number of nuclear weapons in the states of the former Soviet Union. In November 1991, to address the massive quantity of nuclear material left over in the former Soviet Union as a result of ending the Cold War, Congress initiated Cooperative Threat Reduction, also known as the Nunn-Lugar program, which gives the Department of Defense the task of dismantling nuclear warheads, reducing nuclear stockpiles, and securing nuclear weapons and materials in the states of the former Soviet Union.

In 1991, an estimated 30,000 nuclear weapons existed throughout the former Soviet Union. These conditions raised the serious concern that nuclear materials could be smuggled beyond the borders of the former USSR. Fortunately, CTR was created to help secure these nuclear weapons. Under CTR, more than 20,000 Russian scientists, formerly tasked to create nuclear weapons, now work to dismantle them.

Since 1991, CTR has dismantled nearly 6,000 nuclear warheads, not to mention nearly 500 ballistic missiles, over 300 submarine-launched missiles, and nearly 500 missile silos. This program clearly works, and that is what we need to support it through the annual appropriations process. Unfortunately, CTR has been funded at the same level since its creation in 1991, about $400 million per year. The total amount we have spent on CTR equals around 1 year of spending on missile defense.

Unfortunately, this year's defense appropriations bill provides $27.6 million less for CTR than it did before September 11. So while the threat of nuclear terrorism has increased, our efforts to prevent it have diminished.

The smart response to this threat is to fund the peaceful Cooperative Threat Reduction, Nunn-Lugar, all the programs to reduce the world's supply of nuclear weapons, and not promote the aggressive and expensive missile defense programs which have never tested successfully. That is why I urge Members of this House to vote for the Spratt amendment which will take money out of the missile defense system and put it into the nonproliferation programs. In the long run, Americans will be far safer if Congress promotes and properly funds good nonproliferation initiatives like CTR.

I urge all of my colleagues to keep Americans and the world safe. Vote for the Spratt amendment.

Mr. Chairman, I move to strike the last word.

(Ms. WOOLSEY asked and was given permission to revise and extend her remarks.)

Mr. Chairman, I rise in strong support of the Markey amendment to the Defense Appropriations Bill. This important amendment prohibits defense funds from being used for torture, or to transfer prisoners-of-war to countries that employ the use of torture. That should be a simple decision, a ``no brainer'' vote for Markey--stop funding torture. Vote against Markey--agree to funding torture.

This decision is important because the way we treat our enemies speaks volumes about our character as a Nation, as Americans. I am embarrassed to say that America's treatment of prisoners over the last several years does not speak highly of our national integrity, of the people we really are.

Over the last 2 years, news of prisoners being mistreated, beaten, sexually assaulted, and even killed while in U.S. custody has become all too commonplace and I fear we have yet to hear the whole story.

Prisoners have been tortured in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. Considering the widespread use of torture, no one can claim that these are isolated incidents, that it's merely the work of ``a few bad apples.''

The fact that torture occurred in separate places, and under the command of different interrogators, leads me to believe that a more systemic failure took place, a system that starts from the very top, not from a few misguided enlisted personnel.

You could say that the turning point--the day torture became a routine tactic employed by the United States--was August 1, 2002. The day the Justice Department sent a memo to the White House, stating that torturing terrorists in captivity ``may be justified.''

It's not just that physical abuse has taken place under our watch. That's bad enough, but what is just as appalling is that legal abuses have taken place here at home. We have kept people in prison for more than 3 years without charging them with a crime, and the administration has affirmed this practice through legal memos.

This approval of torture--by the White House, the Pentagon, and the Justice Department--is not only shameful, it also endangers the United States.

At a time when the U.S. is courting the support of the international world--particularly the Arab world--the torture of foreign prisoners, along with our invasion of Iraq, gives the world's extremists what they believe to be a legitimate reason to hate the United States. There has been no better recruiting tool for al Qaeda than preemptively attacking Iraq and the events at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq.

Mr. Chairman, we must end this shameful chapter in our Nation's history by pledging that the United States will not engage in the act of torture. I urge all of my colleagues to vote for the Markey amendment.

Mr. Speaker, on April 12 at Fort Hood, Texas, President Bush told an audience of thousands of servicemembers that, for the first time, Iraqi soldiers outnumbered U.S. soldiers in Iraq. Specifically, he put the number of trained Iraqi forces at 150,000.

This rosy assessment of the situation in Iraq is shocking, not only for its arrogance, but also for its ignorance. Is the President totally oblivious of Iraq's true security failures, or is he misleading the American people into thinking that peace has taken hold?

Either way, the President's assessment misleads the American people about the true situation in Iraq. Take, for example, his claim that 150,000 Iraqi soldiers have been trained. Iraqi military leaders actually reveal that the number of trained soldiers is closer to 75,000, about half of the President's estimate. But the actual number of trained security personnel committed to a secure and democratic Iraq is even less than that, because many soldiers use their posts to assassinate political opponents. Others simply have no desire to help secure Iraq.

The chief of police in Basra, General Hassan al-Sade, stated that at least half of his 14,000-member militia are openly opposed to a secure Iraq, and another quarter are politically neutral and do not follow his military orders. General al-Sade recently told the Guardian newspaper, ``I trust 25 percent of my force, no more.''

After giving his Fort Hood speech, the President never again mentioned that 150,000 Iraqi security personnel have been trained. Perhaps that is because he realized that his assessment was entirely inaccurate.

But the President never admitted to the American people that he was wrong in this assessment, and he still has not told the American people how he plans to help secure Iraq or how and when he plans to bring the troops home.

Mr. Speaker, the best way to help secure Iraq and protect our troops is to remove U.S. troops from the country. Nothing enrages and unites Iraq's insurgency more than the presence of nearly 140,000 American soldiers on Iraqi soil.

One option is to bring one American soldier home for every trustworthy Iraqi soldier that has been trained. If 75,000 Iraqi soldiers have been trained, half the President's April 12 assessment, then why can we not remove the same number of our own soldiers?

This is just one plan to exit from Iraq. We have asked the President to come up with his own plan for securing Iraq. I am not against supporting the President's plan if it is a good one; but right now, he does not even have a plan. So we will develop a plan of our own.

Fortunately, there is a plan that would secure America for the future once we have cleaned up the mess we made in Iraq: SMART Security. SMART is a Sensible, Multilateral American Response to Terrorism for the 21st Century, and it will help us address the threats we face as a Nation.

SMART Security will prevent acts of terrorism in countries like Iraq by addressing the very conditions which allow terrorism to take root: poverty, despair, resource scarcity, lack of education, and economic opportunities. SMART Security encourages the United States to work with other nations to address the most pressing global issues. SMART Security addresses global crises diplomatically instead of by resorting to armed conflict. Efforts to help the Iraqi people must follow the SMART approach: humanitarian assistance coordinated with our international allies to rebuild Iraq's war-torn physical and economic infrastructure.

Mr. Speaker, it has been more than 2 years since the United States started the war in Iraq. Do the American people, especially the soldiers who are bravely serving our country halfway across the world, not deserve a plan for ending the war? It is time for the President to create a plan to end the war in Iraq to bring our troops home.

Mr. Speaker, the way we treat our enemies speaks volumes about our character as a Nation, and I am embarrassed to say that America's treatment of prisoners over the last several years does not speak highly of our national integrity.

Since 9/11 and especially over the last 2 years, news of prisoners being mistreated, beaten, sexually assaulted, and even killed while in U.S. custody has become all too commonplace. Prisoners have been tortured in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Guantanamo Bay. Considering the widespread use of torture, no one can claim that these are isolated incidents, that it is merely the work of a few bad apples.

In fact, Mr. Speaker, I fear there will be more appalling news about American abuses of Iraqi people coming. The fact that torture occurred in separate places and under the command of different interrogators leads me to believe that a more systemic failure took place.

One could say that the turning point, the day torture became a routine tactic employed by the United States, was August 1, 2002. That is the day the Justice Department sent a memo to the White House stating that torturing terrorists in captivity ``may be justified.'' It is just not that physical abuse has taken place under our watch. That is bad enough. What is just as appalling is that legal abuses have taken place here at home. We have kept people in prison for more than 3 years without charging them with a crime, and the administration has affirmed this practice through legal memos.

This approval of torture by the White House, the Pentagon, and the Justice Department is not only shameful; it also endangers the United States. At a time when the United States is courting the support of the international world, particularly the Arab world, the torture of foreign prisoners along with our invasion of Iraq gives the world's extremists what they believe to be a legitimate reason to hate the United States. There has been no better recruiting tool for al Qaeda than the events at Abu Ghraib and in Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, there must be a better way to conduct foreign policy than by beating, torturing, and sexually assaulting our enemies. The United States has other options than to engage in the sadistic practices of torture. We in the United States are better people than that.

That is why I have reintroduced the SMART Security legislation with the support of 50 of my colleagues. SMART Security is a Sensible, Multilateral, American Response to Terrorism for the 21st Century; and it will help secure the United States for the future. SMART Security will ensure America's security by reaching out and engaging the Iraqi people. Instead of rushing off to war for the wrong reasons and then engaging in torture once we are there, SMART Security encourages the United States to work with other nations to address the most pressing global issues.

Not every international problem has a military answer, and that is why SMART Security will prevent terrorism by addressing the very conditions which give rise to terrorism in the first place: poverty, despair, resource scarcity, and lack of proper education.

The situation in the Middle East requires the best America has to offer. SMART Security relies on the very best of America: our commitment to peace and freedom, our compassion for the people of the world, and our capacity for multilateral leadership. This is the best way to encourage democracy in countries like Iraq. Not through wars that cost thousands of unnecessary deaths, not by throwing billions of dollars at our problems, and certainly not by torturing our enemies.

We have a responsibility to set a positive example for the rest of the world. We can end this shameful chapter in our Nation's history by pledging that the United States does not condone acts of torture.

To show the world that we mean business, we need to create a plan to begin bringing home the soldiers serving in Iraq. By ending the military occupation of Iraq, we will demonstrate that America is committed to peace in the Middle East and the rest of the world. It is time to start this process. We need to start it today.

Mr. Chairman, America's treatment of prisoners over the last several years speaks poorly, and that is an understatement, to our national integrity.

Since 9/11, prisoners have been tortured in Iraq, Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay, and considering the widespread use of torture, no one can claim that these are isolated incidents, that it is merely the work of a few bad apples.

At a time when the United States is courting the support of the international world, particularly the Arab world, the torture of foreign prisoners gives the world's extremists and Iraqi insurgents what they believe to be a reason to hate the United States. There has been no better recruiting tool for al Qaeda than our attacking Iraq in the first place and the events at Abu Ghraib in the second place.

Mr. Chairman, there is a better way to conduct foreign policy. I urge all of my colleagues to support the Markey amendment and to end the use of torture by the United States.

Mr. Chairman, we recently experienced the Southeast Asia tsunami that destroyed valuable medical services for women across the affected area. But, with the help of the UNFPA, we were able to calculate that 150,000 women were pregnant in the region at the time of the trauma, putting them at greater risk than normal because of sudden loss of medical support. Without UNFPA, these women would not have had the guarantee of safe, clean environments to deliver their babies. They would not have had the access to the medical support and medicines they need to ensure a healthy birth.

Safe and healthy childbirth should not be a political issue. While disagreements about UNFPA will certainly remain, continuing to ensure this program has never been more important than it is now. I urge my colleagues to join me in supporting the Maloney-Shays amendment.

Mr. Speaker, I would like to say a word about the gentleman from Illinois, also. There are probably no two people that are more opposite than the two of us. I want the gentleman to know, I am going to miss him when he really does leave the floor.

Mr. Speaker, if H.R. 2745 is enacted, it will be a huge step backward for women around the world, because it would end U.S. funding for CEDAW. CEDAW is the U.N. Convention on the Elimination of Discrimination Against Women, which is the U.N. treaty on the rights of women around the world. CEDAW is a United Nations treaty that supports international standards to discourage sex-based discrimination and encourages equality in education,

health care, employment and all other arenas of public life for all women around the world. This treaty serves as a powerful tool for women worldwide as they fight against discrimination. It also leads to substantial improvements for women's lives across the world.

The impact of CEDAW can be seen in countries like Australia where the government cited its treaty obligations in passing national legislation against sexual harassment in the workplace based on CEDAW, or in Pakistan where education for young women was introduced in primary schools after treaty ratification in Pakistan, causing sharp increases in female enrollment in their schools.

To date, 170 countries have ratified CEDAW. Sadly, the United States continues to be the only industrialized nation that has not ratified, leaving us in the company of Afghanistan, North Korea, and Iran. It is time to abandon this unfavorable distinction. It is time to be a world leader and a champion of human and women's rights. We must ratify CEDAW, and we must do it now. That is why I urge my colleagues to cosponsor my resolution on CEDAW, H. Res. 67, to support the Lantos amendment, and to vote against this base bill unless we do something drastically to improve it.

Mr. Speaker, many of the children with the greatest capacity to learn will not be finishing their school year because they did not have a school year. I am talking about children under 5 who are often left behind because too few States offer universal, voluntary, State-funded, pre-K programs.

Democrats believe every parent who wants to send a young child to pre-K should have that opportunity, regardless of their income. Democrats are committed, as part of our ``Democrats' New Partnership for America's Future,'' to working with States to establish, expand, or improve high-quality, pre-K programs.

The bottom line is: pre-K works. Children who participate are more likely to excel academically, go to college, and hold a secure job, and less likely to require special education, to have delinquency problems, or slip into welfare dependency.

This is the educational equivalent of preventive health care. As childhood immunizations allow us to avoid debilitating illness, similarly, high-quality pre-K reduces the need for remedial efforts and produces more successful adults.

Like all educational issues, this is fundamentally an economic issue. High-quality pre-K is a desperately needed investment in our children, their future, and our Nation's economic strength.

Mr. Speaker, our global competitors do not wait until children turn 5 to begin their formal education. Why should we?

Mr. Chairman, like my constituents, I believe that doctors should be permitted to prescribe marijuana for patients suffering debilitating diseases like cancer, AIDS, glaucoma, spastic disorders, and many more. We want the Federal Government to get out of our way because our State of California passed Proposition 215 in 1996, allowing for the use of marijuana for medical purposes.

The Members should know that my mother suffered from glaucoma and marijuana relieved her tremendously. In fact, her favorite Christmas present was a tin of marijuana. She is gone now, but I am certain that I speak for her today in asking that those who suffer from these debilitating diseases get help and can use marijuana if that help works. We want the Justice Department to stop punishing those who are

abiding by their State laws. Join me in supporting this important amendment.

Mr. Chairman, the PATRIOT Act, as it stands, forces or could force users to self-censor their own reading choices, just on fear alone. Mr. Chairman, censorship is not what America is about.

Under the PATRIOT Act, the FBI can go after your library or your book-purchasing records; and librarians or book sellers, under the penalty of law, cannot inform patrons of the library or the bookstore that it is under investigation or that a patron's records have been searched.

That is why, Mr. Chairman, I rise in support of the Sanders Freedom to Read amendment. America's right to read and purchase books without fear of government monitoring has been erased by the PATRIOT Act, and Congress must repeal this unconstitutional provision.

In fact, the ultimate success for terrorists is to change our country by taking away our rights and our liberties.

Mr. Speaker, the Defense appropriations bill that will be on the House floor tomorrow contains $45 billion in emergency bridge funding to pay for the war in Iraq and Afghanistan.

This money is called bridge funding because it will bridge the funding gap between the most recent $79 billion supplemental spending bill for Iraq, which Congress passed in February, and the next one, sometime this fall.

This bridge fund is like a bridge to nowhere. The latest $45 billion for the war in Iraq is just the Bush administration's latest grab into the big congressional money bag, the Defense appropriations bill, because it is virtually hidden in a huge $400 billion Defense appropriations bill. This is outrageous.

An additional $45 billion for the war in Iraq is a staggering amount. This bridge fund comes on top of the emergency supplemental bill that was approved a mere 4-months ago, allocating another $79 billion for the war, bringing the costs of the war to over $200 billion before this new $45 billion expenditure.

The bridge fund represents the fifth time Congress will fund the war in Iraq without hearings, without oversight and without accountability.

$45 billion is not insignificant. It is several billion dollars more than the President requested for homeland security funding for fiscal year 2006. In fact, it is more than the President has requested for homeland security in any year since the Department of Homeland Security was established in the year 2001.

It would be one thing if the President actually had a plan to bring our troops home, but after more than 2 years and over 1,700 American troops being killed, he still has not come to the table with a plan. Mr. Speaker, since the President will not come up with a plan for Iraq, we will have to. It will have to come from the Congress.

This unpopular war is a lose-lose. It is America's very presence in Iraq that unites the strong insurgency, a whole new generation of terrorists, whose common bond is their hatred for the United States and its aggressive militarism.

Once we have a plan in place to end the war, we can begin the long process of helping Iraq rebuild its failing physical and economic infrastructure, and we can accomplish this while we are at the same time preventing future wars through SMART security.

SMART security, which has the support of 50 Members of Congress is a Sensible, Multilateral, American Response to Terrorism for the 21st Century, and it will help us address the threats we face as a Nation.

SMART security will ensure America's security by reaching out and engaging the Iraqi people. Instead of rushing off to war for the wrong reasons, SMART security encourages the United States to work with other Nations to address the most pressing global issues.

Not every international problem has militaries, and that is why SMART security will prevent terrorism, by addressing the very conditions which give rise to terrorism: poverty, despair, resource scarcity and lack of education.

This is the best way to encourage democracy in countries like Iraq, not through wars, not through the barrel of a gun, not through ways that cause thousands of unnecessary deaths and costs billions and billions of dollars.

The Bush administration needs to get smart about Iraq, and take a long, hard look at the effects of our policies there. We can end the war, we can bring our troops home, and we can do it by creating a plan to bring them home.

The U.S. soldiers who are serving in Iraq deserve nothing less. Bringing the troops home will help secure Iraq. It will save the lives of thousands of Americans, and it is time that we do not put any other excuses in front of us because we must start this process, and we must start it today.

Mr. Chairman, I rise today in support of the Velazquez amendment amendment and thank the gentlewoman from New York on all her efforts to help small busineses. I am pleased that this amendment will reinstate funding for the 7(a) loan program and ensure that small businesses will once again be able to benefit from its lending power.

As a former small business owner, I know the frustrations and worries small business owners have had as this program has been repeatedly targeted by the Bush administration. Small businesses are one of our Nation's leading employment opportunities but few businesses can afford to startup or expand without the help of loans.

The president likes to talk about an ``ownership society,'' but his budget hurts middle class Americans by denying funding for this program. How can we have a strong middle class if we don't extend opportunities for people to start their own businesses? This just doesn't make sense.

Renewing our commitment to the small business administration 7(a) loan program will not only bolster our Nation's workforce but also the economy as a whole. This program gives people a chance to start a business of their own and make a positive impact on their lives and their communities.

Mr. Chairman, I want to urge all of my colleagues to join me in supporting this important amendment and our small business owners.

Mr. Speaker, I ask unanimous consent to take my Special Order at this time.

Mr. Speaker, our Constitution states that Members of Congress must be chosen by the people of the United States, and Congress must represent the people of the United States. That means that we as Members of Congress need to listen and need to act when the people speak.

Well, the American people have spoken. The last Gallup poll released earlier this week indicates that the American people are ready for our military forces in Iraq to start coming home. Nearly 60 percent of Americans believe that the U.S. should bring home some or all of our troops from Iraq. Just as revealing, the Gallup poll showed that only 36 percent of Americans support maintaining our current troop levels in Iraq. This is the lowest level of support for the war since it began in March of 2003.

The American people have stated loud and clear where they stand, and their numbers are increasing. They know that the only way to keep our sons and daughters from being killed in Iraq, and the only way to end the death and destruction that occur there every single day, is to begin the process of bringing our troops home. Clearly, the American people are way ahead of Congress on this issue.

Unfortunately, the President of the United States is way behind on the issue of Iraq. We have asked the President to come up with a plan for ending the war. He has not, so we will.

Our efforts to come up with a plan began in January when I introduced legislation calling for the President to begin bringing our troops home. Thirty-five Members of Congress support this legislation. We continued our effort on May 25 when I introduced an amendment to the defense authorization bill calling on the President to create a plan for Iraq. Mr. Speaker, 128 Members of Congress, including five Republicans and one Independent, voted in favor of this sensible amendment.

It is clear that the United States must develop a smarter agenda for Iraq than a continued military occupation, because the 2-year war has left us disturbingly weakened against the true security threats that we face here at home. Let us not forget, Osama bin Laden is still at large, and al Qaeda continues to recruit new members in Iraq and elsewhere every single day. So, we ask the President to create a plan and bring it to the Congress that will bring our troops home. Once they are home, we can secure the U.S. and Iraq for the future, and we can use a smarter resolution, which is a Sensible Multilateral American Response to Terrorism for the 21st Century. It will help us address the threats we face as a Nation.

SMART Security will prevent future acts of terrorism by addressing the root conditions which give rise to terrorism in the first place: poverty, despair, resource scarcity, and lack of educational opportunities, to mention just a few. SMART Security encourages the United States to work with other nations to address the most pressing global issues. SMART Security addresses global crises diplomatically instead of by resorting to armed conflict.

Instead of maintaining a long-term military occupation of Iraq, our future efforts to help the Iraqi people must follow the SMART approach: humanitarian assistance, coordinated with our international allies, to rebuild Iraq's war-torn physical and economic infrastructure.

That is what I mean when I talk about SMART Security. We can defend America by relying on the very best of American values: our commitment to peace and freedom, our compassion for the people of the world, and our capacity for multilateral leadership.

Mr. Speaker, we must follow a smarter approach as we work to help the Iraqi people, which means implementing a plan to end the war in Iraq. I invite the President, I invite all Americans and all Members of Congress, to join in this effort.

Mr. Speaker, one would not travel to a foreign country without making a plan. And one would not buy a house without first making a plan, so why does the Bush administration insist on fighting a quarter trillion dollar war without a plan to end it? It is totally irresponsible for the White House to ask 150,000 United States troops to serve in a dangerous country halfway around the world without a plan to bring them home.

With over 1,700 American soldiers killed in action thus far, representing more than 1 percent of our total force in Iraq, our government owes them the courtesy of planning on how we are going to bring them home.

Unfortunately, the government has failed our troops in Iraq from the very beginning. First, we did not have a plan on going in and why we were going in.

Next, the Pentagon neglected to provide life-saving body armor for each and every one of our troops. A study by the Pentagon released last year stated that nearly one-quarter of those killed

during the first year of the war could have been saved with the proper body armor; but we did not plan to protect them well.

Now with over 1,700 American soldiers dead, the government has continually neglected to plan for an end to this disastrous war. President Bush likes to talk about the importance of high troop morale, but he needs to talk to the Veterans Against the Iraq War. They will tell Members the best way to ensure high morale, and they will say the best way is for our soldiers to be assured they will actually be coming home, they will leave Iraq and there will be a plan to make it happen.

The way to ensure that and to raise their morale is by starting to bring them home. Why then has President Bush not stated America's long- term intentions in Iraq? His comments on the subject have been limited to statements like, We will stay until the mission has succeeded and not one day longer.

Mr. Speaker, how does he define the mission as succeeded when he will not even acknowledge that there is an actual end to the mission?

Even if the President will not create a plan to end the war in Iraq, there are many in Congress and around the country who will. Earlier this month nearly one-third of the House voted for the amendment I offered to the defense authorization bill to urge the President to create a plan for the withdrawal of troops from Iraq. This sensible amendment would not have whisked our troops out of Iraq prematurely, it simply asked the President to get busy and develop a plan for the end of this war.

Believe me, if he does not, we will because the people of this country want to bring our troops home. Fortunately, there is a plan that would secure America for the future, SMART Security. SMART is Sensible, Multilateral American Response to Terrorism for the 21st Century. SMART will help us address the threats we face as a Nation and will make war the last option.

SMART Security will prevent acts of terrorism in countries like Iraq by addressing the very conditions that allow terrorism to take root: Poverty, despair, resource scarcity and lack of educational opportunity.

SMART Security encourages the United States to work with other nations to address the most pressing global issues. SMART addresses global crises diplomatically instead of by resorting to armed conflict.

Efforts to help the Iraqi people must follow the SMART approach, humanitarian assistance coordinated with our international allies to rebuild Iraq's war torn physical and economic infrastructure.

Mr. Speaker, the American people clearly prefer the SMART approach to our current policies in Iraq. Nearly 60 percent of Americans believe the war in Iraq has been handled poorly and that the United States should immediately begin withdrawing some or all of our troops. Let us support our troops in Iraq and the will of 60 percent of the American people. We can do both by beginning to bring home our troops serving in Iraq. The time is now. The time is now to end the United States military occupation of Iraq.

Mr. Speaker, thank you for picking and selecting such a great group of young people. I am proud that I have gotten to know you a little bit. I am so motherly when I run into you on the elevators, I see so many of the faces I have asked where are you from, how are you liking this and asked question, question, question. And you have been so patient and polite with me, and thank you very much.

Part of growing up is knowing you have to be polite to adults, and you hope when you are an adult people will be polite with you, particularly pages in the House of Representatives because you represent our entire Nation and our territories. You bring such a perfect, beautiful face to this. Every one of you, you look like the country. That is good for us, and it is good for you, and it is certainly good for the diversity of democracy that we uphold here.

I have learned from you, and I think you have learned from us and are taking a lot back; but at the same time you have contributed so much.

Do not think for a minute you are just here taking. You gave. We know that and appreciate that, and maybe we have not always let you know how much we appreciate you, but we do. Good luck, good future, and congratulations for being just exactly the people you are. Thank you.